Spider again weaving web of pulp drama in comic series

Updated 4:19 pm, Tuesday, May 22, 2012

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Cover to "The Spider" No. 1, written by San Antonio novelist David Liss with interior art by Colton Worley. The Spider is a pulp vigilante from the 1930s. Liss brings him to the present in the new comic series by Dynamite Entertainment. Cover art by Francesco Francavilla.

Cover to "The Spider" No. 1, written by San Antonio novelist David Liss with interior art by Colton Worley. The Spider is a pulp vigilante from the 1930s. Liss brings him to the present in the new comic series

Cover to "The Spider" No. 1, written by San Antonio novelist David Liss with interior art by Colton Worley. The Spider is a pulp vigilante from the 1930s. Liss brings him to the present in the new comic series by Dynamite Entertainment. Cover art by John Cassaday.

Cover to "The Spider" No. 1, written by San Antonio novelist David Liss with interior art by Colton Worley. The Spider is a pulp vigilante from the 1930s. Liss brings him to the present in the new comic series

Cover to "The Spider" No. 1, written by San Antonio novelist David Liss with interior art by Colton Worley. The Spider is a pulp vigilante from the 1930s. Liss brings him to the present in the new comic series by Dynamite Entertainment. Cover art by Alex Ross.

Cover to "The Spider" No. 1, written by San Antonio novelist David Liss with interior art by Colton Worley. The Spider is a pulp vigilante from the 1930s. Liss brings him to the present in the new comic series

Before Spider-Man ever swung over the streets of New York, another arachnid hero fought back-alley crime in the Big Apple. Only this web-themed avenger wasn't your friendly neighborhood type.

He called himself the Spider, a vicious fedora-wearing vigilante in a black cape, black suit and black domino mask. His instruments of justice were just as menacing - a pair of .45 automatics and a crimson spider emblem he brands onto foes' foreheads as a calling card.

Harry Steeger created the Spider in 1933 to compete with the popular pulp hero the Shadow. Now San Antonio novelist David Liss brings the Spider to the present with "The Spider" No. 1, the first issue in a new comic series for mature readers by Dynamite Entertainment.

Liss will sign copies of "The Spider" at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Alamo Drafthouse Stone Oak. At 6 p.m., the pulp runneth over with a free screening of 1994's "The Shadow" starring Alec Baldwin as the title hero. San Antonio online retailer ComicBreak.com, the event's host, will have "Spider" comics for sale, along with "Shadow" comics by Dynamite and an exclusive Spider poster by "Spider" artist Colton Worley.

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Liss has a knack for bringing pulp fiction to comic panels. The best-selling author of "The Twelfth Enchantment" and "The Devil's Company" also wrote the urban jungle exploits of the Black Panther for Marvel and introduced the Operative and other pulp heroes in "Mystery Men," a limited series set in the early days of the Marvel Universe before Captain America.

Liss discussed the Spider's pulp past and future influence on comics.

Q: What did you discover about the Spider's early roots?

A: The most obvious thing that I think that may be of interest to the readers is the degree to which he is one of the most important precursors to Batman and the comic-book vigilante in general.

The Spider was created to compete with the Shadow in the pulps. But certainly more so than the Shadow, the Spider prefigures the comic-book vigilante. Or I think it would be more accurate to say the comic-book vigilantes are imitating the Spider.

Q: In your new Spider comic, he wears a black mask and cape covered in blood-red webs, a monstrous look compared to his dapper original outfit. Why the costume change?

A: I don't know. (Laughs.) Shortly after I had talks with Dynamite about doing this, they sent me the character designs that (Eisner Award-winning artist) Alex Ross had done. Basically, when you get character designs by Alex Ross, you don't say, "No. Explain yourself." I was interested in why they did it because the design is based on the look from the film serials, based on the pulps.

Q: Why bring the Spider to the present when Dynamite's Shadow comics are set in the past?

A: I didn't have a strong opinion because I liked both the idea of doing a period piece - obviously that's something that I'm comfortable with - but I also liked the idea of the creative challenge of trying to update it. And while I was busy not making a decision, Dynamite went ahead and made it for me.

Q: What really makes the Spider different from the Shadow besides a webbed mask and cape?

A: Some of the distinguishing characteristics of the Spider, and certainly our run of the Spider, are completely insane, over-the-top villains who do completely insane things.

That's something that, if you read the pulps, you see right away these bad guys have no problem blowing up whole blocks of the city or killing thousands of people or enslaving the entire population of a town with a mind-control drug. There's a kind of excessive, larger-than-life quality.

The Spider's villains are another way in which he was very influential for comic books. He had villains who had loopy names and wore costumes. The Shadow was largely fighting gangsters; the Spider was fighting guys with names like the Cholera King. (Laughs.)

Q: And what about the Spider's alter ego, rich war hero Richard Wentworth? Haven't we seen this wealthy-man-behind-the-mask before with Bruce Wayne when he isn't prowling the rooftops as Batman?

A: Essentially the question is: How can you differentiate your character from the character who's based on your character? (Laughs.) … Because you have in the Spider and classic Batman stories the guy who is super-rich, and the fact that he's super rich means he has access.

Because you're rich you can't just walk around a crime scene. So I did some things like I made (Wentworth) a freelance consultant for the police on certain kinds of crimes, so that he would have access to crime scenes. … (And now) he's kind of a foul-tempered drinker, and he's a smoker, and he's antisocial. He's certainly not the lovable playboy that Bruce Wayne pretends to be.

Q: "The Spider" artist Colton Worley draws some dark, occasionally graphic art. Tell us about working with Worley and what he brings

A: He's really created an incredible look for the book. It's dark, and it's moody, and it has a kind of "shadowy," for want of a better word, noirish feel. But at the same time the art is detailed and precise. … The look of the comic, I think, does a lot of work in bridging the pulp 1930s origins of the character and the modern world. Because it's clearly in the modern world, but (Worley) adds a lot of pulp touches.

Q: Any plans for such street-level costumed action in a future novel?

A: I have thought about what it would be like to write a kind of a pulp novel set in the '30s about a vigilante (and) give it novelistic treatment. Because one of the things I really enjoyed about writing "The Spider" and "Mystery Men" for Marvel is the ability to take pulp characters and pulp situations and add that extra dimension of vivid character. Because the original pulps were a little bit flatter and more about character types than character.